Coming back from an ACL injury, even the smallest feats can feel like big ones.

For what is believed to be the first time since the injury, Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose participated in 5-on-5 drills with his teammates at practice.

Rose has been sidelined from game action since April 28th of 2012, the night he tore his ACL against the Philadelphia 76ers. The Bulls have held their own without Rose and currently sit at the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference with a 30-22 record.

By his own admission, Rose has said he’s “far away” from returning to the floor. Reports from today’s practice are a little more promising, however.

Rose, who tore his ACL in the first game of the 2012 playoffs, made waves last week when he told local reporters that if he wasn’t completely healthy, he would be fine with missing the entire season.

All season long, the Bulls have told reporters that Rose is right on schedule with his rehab work as reporters speculated on a post-All Star return. That didn’t change Monday during the team’s first post-All-Star break practice.

“He’s doing what he should be doing,” Thibodeau said. “He’s focused on his rehab, doing more and more. We just have to be patient. When he’s ready, he’ll go.”

Both the Bulls and Rose are handling this the right way. Rose is the franchise and one of the best players in basketball, so rushing him back would be foolish. Rose shouldn’t have to adhere to Adrian Peterson or Iman Shumpert or anyone else’s timeline — he should be allowed to heal at his own pace. If anything, Rose should be praised for being honest with his evaluation of his current capabilities. That’s something that’s pretty uncommon among athletes at any level.

Aside from all that, it must have felt good for Rose to be back on the court with his teammates. ACL rehab is more monotonous than anything else, and time crawls when you’re not able to play the game you love. Getting a little floor time in is a great step for Rose, both mentally and physically. We don’t know how close he is to coming back, but he’s making steps in the right direction. That’s what counts.

That’s a fine sentiment. Saying it publicly is another matter. Not even Harden did that a couple years ago. He was recorded during a pregame team huddle.

There’s a fine line between self-fulfilling confidence and providing bulletin-board material to the opponent. There’s already some animosity between the teams stemming from the Stephen Curry-Harden MVP race in 2015, and it has bubbled since. No matter how harmless Capela’s remark might have been intended to be, it’ll be met contentiously in the Bay Area.

Oklahoma City traded for Victor Oladipo out of Orlando to be their third scorer, behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It didn’t exactly work out that way, Durant bolted town and when Westbrook went off Oladipo was looking for a place to fit in.

That place turned out to be the Pacers.

Oladipo has been playing like an All-Star this season with Indiana, and last week he was key in snapping Cleveland’s 13 game win streak, then turned around and dropped 47 points on Denver. For the week he averaged 35.7 points a game, shot 45.7 percent from three, plus grabbed 7.7 rebounds per game.